The Interview
by AmZ
Summary: March, 1814: a soldier of the decimated Grande Armee becomes a detective with the newly instituted Security Brigade of Paris. Part of the You Know Nothing of Javert series.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Throughout the story, height is measured in French feet. One French foot is equivalent to 1.07 English feet.

Author's Note 2: Believe it or not, this fic is sort of based on a true story.

* * *

A ray of sunlight pierced the crookedly aligned Venetian shutters and settled squarely on Vidocq's face. The lukewarm tickling sensation made his eyes water and his nose itch. He twitched his nostrils, squeezed his eyelids and sneezed twice, waking up halfway through the second sneeze.

At that instant the old clock upstairs gave a half-hearted chime. Several seconds later, the resonant peal of Palais de Justice made every glass pane in the house vibrate. It was half past three in the afternoon; Vidocq's self-allotted "ten minutes of shut-eye" had lasted a entire hour.

Vidocq pushed his chair back out of the weak, milky sunlight, looked over the now irrevocably dry ink on the sheet in front of him, and glanced out the unwashed window.

Outside in the courtyard birds chirped in their delight at the warm April day, and wind from the river rocked the branches of several sickly maples and birch trees, rustling in their new leaves, which were still only half unfurled from their buds and sticky with sap. The sun had been doing its utmost all day to penetrate the dense gloom of the labyrinth of the Cité, but the skies over Petite Rue Sainte-Anne looked as overcast as usual. But even around the quay des Orfevres, everything that was capable of chirping, blooming or budding chirped, bloomed and budded as hard as it could, in perfect oblivion to the foreign soldiers flooding the streets of Paris, the looming imperative of the Emperor's abdication, and the general crisis of the French Empire.

"Lucky critters," thought Vidocq out loud and reluctantly picked up his quill once again. Unfortunately, clarity of thought, which he had hoped to recover with a short nap, was still absent from his head. Vidocq stared at the two meager paragraphs before him, nibbling thoughtfully on his pen.

The air in the room was intolerably stuffy: the windows had been pasted shut since yesterday afternoon, when the glazier finally deigned to show up with the new window panes. Dust particles whirled about in glittering flocks through beams of diluted sunlight. Now and then, an ancient plank of wood would creak of its own accord somewhere in the house, and the sound would resonate through all three stories like a death groan.

Vidocq was finding the idea of remaining indoors for the rest of the shift more and more intolerable by the minute.

One could perhaps decide to call it a day on the paperwork, he mused, and go off to do something more productive. Like staking out that dram-shop three streets down, for example. It's usually chock full of "firewood" with empty bellies and itchy fingers. Although it is a bit early for the evening crowd. More than a bit early, even. What else was there to do... The witnesses on Rue de Temple still hadn't been interviewed, and it'd definitely be best to get to them before the municipals show up and start waving their truncheons around. But what a devil this Fossard is! Well, it's not the end of things. Patience, surveillance, initiative, that's the ticket. We'll have him in no time.

A movement outside caught Vidocq's eye. Squinting, he half-rose from his chair and looked out the least smudged part of the window.

Someone was advancing down the stone path running through the courtyard: a tall, lanky figure in the modest garb of a worker and with the assured gait of a soldier.

Vidocq pushed his chair in. Now who could that be, he thought bemusedly. I haven't scheduled anyone to come by today... Have I?

There was a firm rap on the door - Vidocq immediately remembered with displeasure that the brass knocker was still lying unscrewed and dismembered in the top drawer of the desk. He picked up his coat from the back of the chair, threw it over his shoulders and reached into the inner side pocket for his old St. Etienne. Adjusting his grip on the smooth, slippery handle under the cloth, he walked up to the door and bent an ear towards the freshly lacquered wood.

Unwanted visitors are never entirely noiseless. Hired bailiffs and warrant officers announce themselves with impatient shuffling and the tapping of heavy canes on the ground; soldiery of the Gendarmerie Royale will cling their bayonets and belch incessantly; and a hired assassin will almost never be able to resist half-cocking and releasing his trigger once or twice as he waits for the victim to throw open the door. But nothing was to be heard from the other side.

"Enter!" exclaimed the intrigued chief of the Parisian secret police.

The inside handle jiggled once, then again, more aggressively. The door remained closed. Vidocq cussed and spat on the floor in frustration. He had forgotten all about the changed locks.

"Wait, I'll open it myself. Touch nothing," instructed Vidocq gruffly and turned the inside handle to make the lock release. The mechanism gave a click - finally, thought Vidocq, something in this dump that's not yet broken, - and the door swung slightly ajar, letting in a mild draft.

Nothing happened. Vidocq waited about ten seconds and then cautiously pushed the door open the rest of the way with the tip of his boot.

The visitor, an unusually tall and thin man, was leaning against a porch support beam with his arms crossed on his chest.

"Why didn't you open the door when I unlocked it?" asked Vidocq, frowning.

"You said to touch nothing," answered the stranger in a hoarse, lightly accented baritone. The massive voice sent tremors of uneasiness throughout Vidocq's gut. It was a voice that did not belong to this century, or even this millennium. It belonged to the times when men in bear-skins got through the winter by slaughtering their neighbors for jerky.

"So I did," agreed Vidocq, adjusting once again his grip on the pistol under his coat, keeping it trained on the visitor's heart. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We had, aeh, made an appointment," said the stranger somewhat apologetically. Somewhere way above Vidocq's head, two intent eyes glinted faintly in the deep shade of the rounded bill of a worn leather cap.

"I do not recall making any appointment for today," said Vidocq.

"It, aeh, wasn't for today," said the stranger. "It was made for quite a while ago. I was, aeh, delayed. The war, you know? I was forced to make a slight detour, as it were, on my way to Paris."

"Do speak plainly, monsieur. Who are you and what business do we have together?" demanded Vidocq.

"_Nom d'un chien_! Have I really changed that much?" The stranger's smile grew into a beastly leer that stretched the two corners of his mouth outwards instead of upwards. "It's been a while, I concede."

Something stirred in his memory. "Wait a minute, wait just a minute..." mumbled Vidocq, frantically sifting his mental catalog of acquaintances for a similar leer.

The stranger waited patiently, arms crossed on his chest and right foot propped casually over the left ankle. His facial features were difficult to discern: the wide-billed cap cast his face almost entirely in the shadow, with only the massive square jaw protruding out into the daylight. The jaw made languid clockwise oscillations, as if the man were slowly breaking up a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth.

"Are you from the Prefecture? Did Monsieur Henry send you here?" asked Vidocq uncertainly.

"No," said the owner of the remarkable jaw somewhat petulantly. "I was not sent here by any Monsieur Henry. You sent me here yourself, remember? We met back when you were imprisoned in Toulon. We exchanged some letters after you escaped. In the last one, you promised to make arrangements with Renault to have me discharged from duty so that I could join your team."

The man kept making small pauses between sentences; it almost sounded as though he had gotten unused to speaking French and had to weed grammar mistakes out from his sentences before voicing them.

"Your name?"

"'I'm warning you.'"

Vidocq blinked.

"Come again?" he asked.

The stranger sighed and his back sagged slightly against the support beam.

"When we first met in the year VII," he explained patiently, "you knew me under that appellation: 'I'm warning you.'"

It was as though a small explosion went off in Vidocq's skull. His grip on the pistol loosened and his arm lowered itself as if of its own accord.

"Does this mean my liver is safe for now?" asked the stranger sarcastically, gesturing with his chin in the direction of the hidden pistol. His mind in a jumble, Vidocq yanked off his coat, locked the trigger and shoved the pistol furiously into an outer coat pocket.

"You are three years late," he said hoarsely, not recognizing his own voice.

"I know," patiently admitted the visitor. "That was the start of the conversation, as I recall."

Silence reigned for a few long seconds.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?" the visitor asked curiously.

Whatever possessed you to grow so much? thought Vidocq desperately. Your own mother wouldn't recognize you now!

Instead he said:

"Come inside. Shut the door behind you."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: A "_toise_" is six Parisian feet, i.e. 6.42 English feet. Javert is around 6'3 English-style. The average height for a French male of his economic class in those days might hover around 5'5.

* * *

The visitor stepped over the threshold with caution, stooping like a question mark and inclining his head to avoid banging it on the doorway. Vidocq's preoccupied eyes searched the room for another chair but didn't find one. 

"That's all right, I can sit on the floor," said the man blithely, folding like a jackknife against the wall facing Vidocq's desk and putting his sharp elbows on his knees.

"Careful, there's a patch of fresh plaster somewhere there," advised Vidocq, taking his own seat.

The visitor half-turned his head, felt the wall behind him with his left hand, then returned to his original position and fixed his eyes on the man who would be his employer. He had not taken off his cap.

Suddenly the man frowned and twitched his short nose like a rabbit.

"What burned?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

"It smells wicked in here." The man tilted his head back against the wall, treating Vidocq to the uncomely sight of two deep, elongated nostrils. "Smells as if someone had burnt a supper of... of something rotten."

"Yes, something did burn in the kitchen a while ago," admitted Vidocq, drawing air through his nose and smelling nothing. A pot of spoiled milk, he amended in his head, and that was three days ago. _Diable!_

"What may I call you?" asked Vidocq. "I am obligated to communicate to the Prefect the name of every man I hire, and _"Je t'avertis"_ or _"J'avertis"_ is not exactly something I can put in writing."

The man nodded a little.

"Xavier will do fine."

Xavier. Damn, he knew that. It's only been three years since he checked over those records.

"So, Monsieur Xavier, where have you been for the past..." - Vidocq's brain made some quick calculations - "three years and one month?"

"At war," said the man simply. "Then in the infirmary. Then in captivity. Then on the road. And you can dispense with the 'Monsieur.'"

"Oh? A man of Republican sentiments?"

"No sentiments, just common sense," shrugged the man. "Right now all my worldly possessions fit into two suitcases - whose "sieur" could I possibly be? Just call me Xavier. Or Javert, if you like. I've grown used to hearing it from the fellows in my ward."

The remark made Vidocq smile.

"Where did you fight?" he asked.

"In Russia."

Vidocq's eyebrows rose.

"You've made it back from Russia alive and intact?"

"Aaaeeh, not quite intact, no," exhaled Javert with a sort of mirthless half-laugh.

Vidocq quickly surveyed the seated figure of his prospective agent. Nothing seemed to be missing, save perhaps a few rather needed pounds. Javert caught his eyes and smirked, getting back on his feet and approaching the desk. With an air of grim smugness, he squatted near Vidocq's chair, lowering his face to make the top of his head visible and quitted his leather cap, brushing back strands of untidy black hair. Vidocq took one look and swallowed convulsively.

Javert was missing a great chunk of skull above the left ear.

"As you can see, my _sorbonne_ has lost a faculty," quipped Javert dryly, screwing up his deep-set gray eyes to meet Vidocq's wide blue, then pulled his cap back over his head and sat down again, this time right next to the desk, at Vidocq's feet.

"I'm sorry about your wound," said Vidocq, amending mentally: sorry and not a little perplexed. How can anyone be coherent and coordinated with so much of his head gone?

Javert inclined his head slightly, extended one corner of his large, thin-lipped mouth and lifted his eyebrows once, as if to say: all is in the hands of the Almighty.

"Who did you serve under?"

"Davout."

Vidocq pondered the name for a moment and his eyes widened again.

"You were in the Imperial Guard?"

"Sergeant of the 1st company of the 2nd battalion of the 4th regiment of conscript skirmisher-grenadiers Xavier at your service!" rattled off Javert and mock saluted Vidocq. "I even have the tattoo," he added with a sort of boyish pride.

"_Tonnerre!_" exclaimed Vidocq. "I ought to be the one saluting in that case: I only made it to corporal before I… got discharged. But how did you manage to get into the Guard?"

"Well, a recruiter came by in March of 1811 and spent two solid days getting smashed with the prison director." (Odd, thought Vidocq, that doesn't sound at all like old Renault.) "Then the next morning some of us – the guards, I mean - were ordered to line up and the sergeant just went through the ranks."

"And he picked you," finished Vidocq.

Javert grinned like a wolf.

"He sure did. Said I had the mug of a born corporal. And the height didn't hurt either. I was five or six inches taller than the next candidate and he was looking for potential grenadiers."

"Just how tall are you exactly?" wondered Vidocq.

"Close to six feet standard, maybe an inch or two shorter. I thought was being conscripted for line infantry, but they transferred me to the Guard before I even had time to see the drilling barracks."

"And you made it to sergeant within 6 months?" asked Vidocq incredulously.

Javert shrugged again.

"There was no shortage of opportunities for promotion on the battlefield. To be honest, I probably slaughtered enough Russians to have a real marshal's baton in my knapsack by now instead of a metaphorical one," he said glumly.

"For all the time that's passed, you seem to remember French argot well enough," said Vidocq, deciding it was time for a subject change.

"I can still cant a tune, yeah," smirked Javert, scratching in the back of his misshapen head with two fingers.

He probably brought back Russian lice with him, thought Vidocq with a twinge of displeasure. Ultra-hungry and ultra-vicious. And covered in fur.

God damn it, what am I going to do with him?

For a few long seconds Vidocq stared into the wall ahead and thought very hard.

"I'll be frank with you," he said finally. "I am at a loss. I know I promised you a position here, but when I saw you last fifteen years ago, you and I were about the same height. Never in your replies to my letters did you mention the fact that you grew to be almost a full _toise _since our last meeting."

"Children grow," remarked Javert with rationality that almost bordered on imbecilic. "I didn't think enough of it to mention."

Vidocq stood up and began pacing the room. There wasn't much room for him to pace, only several feet in either direction from the corner where he was sitting. Javert's heavy gaze followed him like the pendulum of an antique clock.

"Were this just regular police service, there'd be no problem," expounded Vidocq. "Perhaps you ought to look into that career as an alternative. I'm sure you'd excel at it. I foresee that since the Emperor's abdication is pretty much inevitable at this point, it will be demobilized _grognards_ like yourself that will soon start taking up the vacancies within the police force. There are no better men for the job, either: all one needs is obedience and courage, and that's about it."

"No, no," he continued, seeing Javert's eyes narrow. "I wouldn't dream of maligning army men, you understand – I'm an army man myself. But I'll tell you plainly and honestly, as a veteran of Valmy and Jemappes to a veteran of Krasnoi and Beresina: the army does not produce quick men. It produces obedient men and it produces courageous men, and that's good enough if you're a gendarme or an inspector. But that's not what my team is about. We are about" - Vidocq began crooking fingers – "vigilance, ingenuity, initiative, and above all - above all else! – inconspicuousness."

He stopped in the middle of the room and gave Javert's figure another appraising look. Even seated the man was obviously gigantic. Those legs were **everywhere**.

"And that's really where our previous plan comes apart," continued Vidocq seriously. "You must be able to blend into the crowd to be an effective spy. When you are a head taller than any other inhabitant of a quarter, people will know who you are no matter how much you disguise your appearance..."

He trailed off in mid-sentence. Wait a minute, he thought. Wait just a minute. Why must this necessarily be a bad thing?


	3. Chapter 3

Vidocq walked back to his chair and sat down.

"How aware are you of the police situation in Paris?" he asked, folding his hands in front in the attentive manner of an old doctor.

"Not at all," answered Javert. "This is my first time in Paris."

"But do you at least know how the police divide their labor?"

"Like they do everywhere else, I imagine. Soldier guard for patrol, municipal inspectors for general surveillance and enforcement, court-attached bailiffs and sheriffs for warrant execution. And now also your squad for catching thieves."

Vidocq nodded with approval.

"Good, so you do know a little after all. But do you know why thieves have to be dealt with by my men and not the municipal police?"

"No."

Vidocq thought for a moment and then spread his hands on the table, as if demonstrating the size of 'the one that got away.'

"Imagine the following situation," he said. "Suppose a market stall has been robbed in Chaillot. The proprietor, who is usually some old hag, immediately raises Cain and several inspectors come running. The thief is spotted making his way through the crowd in the direction of Montmartre. What would you do if you were one of those inspectors?"

"Give chase, naturally," answered Javert.

Vidocq smiled and nodded, re-folding his hands.

"A very fine and logical decision. Only you see, as an inspector you are not allowed to leave your assigned district without your commissaire's explicit written permission - a chit of blue paper yey big with his signature on it. What then?"

"Well, then I'd have procured the permission beforehand, in case such a thing happens."

"That would be lovely indeed, except that the _quarter-eyes_ - that is, the commissaires - really loathe giving those out. Think about it: if you are a commissaire, and all of your officiers de paix and inspectors run off after miscreants into other districts, who will be left to monitor your own? Any sort of thing can happen while they're gallivanting about the city, and you'd be held responsible. So assume that you do not have the permission. What now?"

Javert scratched intently behind his right ear, then said defiantly:

"I'd give chase anyway. A thief belongs in prison. The commissaire is welcome to sack me later."

Vidocq laughed and leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head.

"Well! I suppose that if all policemen were so intent on getting their man, this issue would have been addressed a long time ago. But, you see, they tend to worry more about keeping their positions. They often have wives to dress, children to feed, indigent parents to comfort, personal vanities to indulge, finally. And it's no skin off their back if some thief gets away - nobody _really_ expects them to catch him, not even the Prefect. So they stay put in the place where they were assigned, and thieves go on thieving."

He leaned back in his chair, linked his hands behind his head and sighed.

"Ironic, isn't it? Heart and soul of the European civilization, Paris, but all a Parisian thief has to do to evade the law is cross a bridge over the Seine. Or dive behind a sewer grate. Or hail a cab and ride several blocks in some particular direction away from the gendarmes. How's that for a policing system, _hein_?"

"I take it your men are not constrained by districting."

Well now, you're quick, thought Vidocq.

"You are correct. They are not."

"Then why ask me how I'd behave if I were? I haven't come here to join the municipal police."

In fact, you're a bit too quick, thought Vidocq and unclasped his hands, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip

"Like I said before," he began evasively, "our brigade is an edifice built on the foundation of inconspicuousness. I can't take you on in the same capacity as all the others – there is simply no way to disguise your height. However..."

Vidocq's fingertips drummed out a little march on the table.

"However, we may just be able to work you into our system after all," he continued. "I could take it upon myself to convince Monsieur Henry – he is Chief of the Second Division, that is, the city's Special Investigative Branch – that I desperately need one regular inspector attached to my Brigade to help me coordinate our efforts with those of the municipality. Which is, in fact, perfectly true; I do need such a man. And I don't think he will refuse me. I do, after all, hold the rank of officier de paix; I am fully entitled to a helpmate."

Vidocq looked into Javert's round, intent gray eyes and added without really knowing why:

"What is a captain without a good lieutenant, after all? He is like a man without a good wife: incomplete."

Javert snorted.

"No offense, monsieur, but what sort of a man proposes on the second rendezvous? Especially when the first one was a decade and a half ago?"

Ah hah hah, thought Vidocq humorlessly. You funny thing, you.

"I take it you are wondering why I don't just pick someone already listed in my squad for the job. Well, not just anyone will do."

"So why me?"

Vidocq leveled a penetrating gaze at Javert.

"Because, my friend," he said seriously, "you are the only one who can actually enter the police proper on my behalf. Unlike my oh-so-esteemed colleagues, you have no criminal record."

Javert's eyebrows rose a little.

"Oh?" he asked with slightly off-key innocence. "Pardon?"

"You do not have a record," repeated Vidocq with carefully layered meaning.

The corners of Javert's mouth twitched upwards, then fell, then twitched again.

"So... Where'd it go, then?" he asked stupidly.

Vidocq sighed.

"It's simple, really. It's always been simple, in fact - you're the one who's always tried to make it complicated. It never existed. No trial, no conviction - ergo, no record. 'Uncaught, one is not a thief.'"

Javert smiled a little.

"Ah, you've spent time among the Rom."

"Yes, there is that business, too," said Vidocq distractedly and drummed his fingers on the table again. "But let's leave that aside for now. As for that so-called 'murder'... From what I gathered you're the only one who still makes anything of it. There are no relatives pressing the issue; the head of the orphanage and all the brothers who could testify against you are dead; and I've taken measures to ensure that Renault won't talk. So I say, let it go. It was decades ago; it was an accident - these things happen. Don't think you can't promote law and order because of some bloody schoolyard brawl. We are none of us perfect. Don't be so precious with the single incidental body on your civilian conscience. Besides," he continued in a lighter tone, "if you are so strict with yourself, and you only have one dead man to answer for, how can I employ you? I have dozens of them. Duels, brawls, anything you want."

Javert didn't look convinced.

"This cannot be right," he said, shaking his head. "You took measures, you say? Renault had held this death over my head for twenty years. Some 'measures!'"

Suddenly, Javert's eyes flashed with mad elation.

"So that's why he suddenly agreed to release me from service..." he murmured. "I wondered why he suddenly changed his mind like that. How did you do it? Threats? Blackmail?"

"There was some blackmail," said Vidocq reluctantly.

It was becoming very obvious that Javert knew nothing of the battle he had waged with Renault over his person. This would explain why he'd stopped replying to my letters, thought Vidocq. Renault must have tampered with their correspondence. And then there was that fateful arrival of an army recruiter, who placed his new agent on the road to Russia instead of on a diligence to Paris… So that's what Renault had meant with that simpering apologetic scribble! suddenly thought Vidocq. Oh, you black-hearted scoundrel! "Circumstances beyond my control" my left nut! You were just scared stiff that your little secret was going to slip the leash, so you sold him into soldiery to keep yourself safe! But it didn't come easy, did it, sending your own flesh and blood to the slaughter? It couldn't have, or else you wouldn't have spent two days in a drunken stupor beforehand. You utter, utter scoundrel.

"Let's talk no more about it," he offered out loud. "You're in Paris, he's in Toulon, and that's all that matters. If you must know, yes, I did go through some trouble securing your release from duty. Take it as a compliment. I don't exert that much effort on charity cases: you are an investment of mine, and I expect to see you yield a good return. But tell me: are you willing to enter the police on a permanent basis to serve as my connection to the municipality?"

"Sure," answered Javert and smiled. "As long as I don't end up inspecting gutters and broken lanterns for a living."

"That much I can promise."

"Then I'm fine with it. But will I suit them? I mean, politically?"

"Don't worry about that. It's less of an issue than you would think. There's such a shortage of men right now that they'll take almost anyone, as long as he's able-bodied, which you obviously are, head wound or no. We'll probably even be able to talk your way out of the trial period, since you've been a guard in the galleys for so long."

Smiling, Javert relaxed fully against the wall and let his head roll back.

"So is this it then?" he asked.

"Almost," smiled Vidocq. "There's just one little detail left. A formality, one may say."

A very fun one, he amended, feeling almost guilty.

"You see, the idea underlying my Brigade is that of 'like attracts like.' One must know how to relate to the dangerous classes. Position yourself as a competent brigand, and all other brigands will open their souls to you. But this is not easy to do. On several occasions my men have had to accompany their so-called pals through all sorts of trouble, including arrest and imprisonment, just to alleviate their suspicion. I myself have done about two years in various detention houses without having been sentenced to a day. The good news for you is that you aren't fit for such stunts: anyone who'd been schooled at Toulon can probably identify you on sight. But even so, there will definitely be times when you will have to approach some thief or another as one of his own kind. Does this worry you?"

"Not very much," said Javert. "I've spent most of my life among thieves. I know their ways."

"This goes beyond slang, you know. You must be able to slip into a thief's mindset on demand. Could you do that?"

"If the demand came for a good reason, yes. If there was a real need for it."

"Jolly good."

Vidocq slipped his hand into the folds of his blue waistcoat and pulled out a beautiful gold watch.

"Steal this trinket," he said, placing the watch on the table before him.


	4. Chapter 4

Javert's mouth fell slightly open.

Vidocq watched his new agent with barely concealed amusement. Certainly it was unfair to put a prison guard through a _practicum_ designed to test the ingenuity and dexterity of professional thieves, but the Surete tradition called for it. It's not as if any of them actually ever managed it - stealing a watch from under someone's nose was nothing like stealing it from their vest pocket - but it was always such a riot to watch them try!

Several seconds passed in strained silence.

"Well?" repeated Vidocq.

"W-what?" finally slurred Javert.

"Go on," nodded Vidocq. "Here's a watch: steal it. You said you could do it on demand."

Javert looked at the watch, then at his would-be employer, then back at the watch. Within a second, all playfulness was gone from his face, leaving him looking like a stone idol of some ancient pagan deity whose duties and pleasures included abundant smiting. His large mobile mouth solidified into a thin line; his pupils narrowed to black pinpoints; two small angry folds materialized between his eyebrows.

"I had said no such thing," said Javert in a low even voice. "I am no thief. You asked me whether I could pretend to be one. I said that I could. But there was no talk of actually stealing anything."

"How do you intend to convince thieves that you are one of them if you can't actually pull a job? Don't you think they'll guess to put you to the test?" asked Vidocq sarcastically.

Javert's head jerked to the side as if he were slapped. Then, as if awakening from a deep trance, he inhaled an entire chestful of air and breathed out a single prolonged groan:

"Gawd, I can't believe myself." He began rising from the floor, looking somewhat like a cobra emerging from the snake-charmer's basket. "I am such a dolt."

"What do you mean?" asked Vidocq, watching the lean figure of his new agent unfold to its full impressive height.

"Oh, I confess, I was almost hooked," continued Javert as though he heard nothing. "Good show, very well played. The talk of correct positioning was especially convincing."

He ambled up to the table and lowered his eyes to the watch.

"A pretty bauble," he remarked indifferently. "This is real gold, no? Where'd you get it?"

"It was a present from a friend."

Javert coughed out a shallow laugh and then continued coughing into his fist. "Come, come, tell me the truth. Who'd you lift it from? Must've been one rich _dab_."

Vidocq knit his brows in vexation.

"It's not stolen," he protested. "It's my watch. I've had it for years. Look, it's got my initials on it," he said, turning the watch over to show Javert the three gracefully interwoven letters engraved on its back.

Javert picked up the watch, twirled it a little in his hands and then carefully set it back onto the table.

"What of it? Anyone can shell out several francs for a monogram – it's no proof of rightful ownership."

He bent over the table and leaned onto his elbows to take a closer look.

"But I see that it's true what they say about you. You are very clever!" he breathed out in a low, purring voice, as he ran his fingers gingerly over the ornate mother-of-pearl inlay of the watch. "So this is how you recruit your thieves, _hein_? Are there many applicants?" Javert's long fingers began twirling the delicate chain into spirals.

"You misunderstand. I..."

All of a sudden Javert raised his right hand and clapped it rudely over Vidocq's mouth.

"Shut up, thief," he said with bland indifference. "The last thing I want to hear is silly excuses. I know very well you won't confess to anything. I was just making conversation."

You idiot, chided himself Vidocq as he exhaled shallow breaths into Javert's enormous warm palm. What did you think was going to happen? He's a prison guard, for Heavens' sake, not one of your two-bit pickpockets. How did you expect him to react? "_Heya, bub, welcome to the club. Prove thy mettle, pinch some metal!_" Shit.

Javert lowered his hand and went back to playing with the watch chain. "So, how many men do you have working for you now?" he asked distractedly. "Four? Six? Enough for you to clean up pretty good, I imagine. No shortage of crowds in Paris, each one well-stocked with rich idlers and provincial rubes. Very clever… very very clever. I'm impressed. This has to be the first time I hear of thieves organizing into a government subsidized workshop."

"Now listen here..." began Vidocq angrily but once again did not manage to complete his objection. All of a sudden, Javert grasped him firmly by the collar, jerked him out of the chair as if he weighed nothing (which was far from the truth) and pulled him in so close that their noses almost touched. Javert's yellowish eyeballs were bulging out of their orbits and appeared to be rotating in every direction at once. He looked so ferocious and so repulsive that Vidocq felt his neck-hair stand on end.

"No, you listen to me, you filthy cur!" snarled Javert, spraying Vidocq with tobacco-flavored spittle. "I don't know how you got past the Prefect with this scheme of yours, but I am heading right this instant to Rue de Jerusalem to see him personally, and I will set him straight on your real objectives. You and your pet robbers are all done for, you hear me! I will neither eat nor sleep until this nest of vipers is stomped out of existence and you yourself are sent back to the galleys, and not to a sanatorium like Toulon where any idiot can escape after a month's plotting, but straight to Rochefort, to sweat out for good all these airs you've been putting on!"

With that Javert dropped the stupefied detective back into his chair, crossed the room in two huge strides and marched out the door, slamming it so hard that several plaster chips fell from the ceiling.

Stunned by the violence of the explosion, Vidocq sat back and drew a deep ragged breath. Well, there goes the new kid, he thought bitterly. So much for cementing a connection with the municipals.

Furious, Vidocq loosened his cravat and undid his collar. As he deliberated whether to run straight to the Prefect's office with the bad news or wait until their regular daily appointment, his gaze fell upon the table.

The watch was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

For a few seconds, Vidocq simply stared at the bare table. Somewhere within the wooden skeleton of the house, an old rheumatic plank creaked pitifully. In the attic, the window frame finally got tired of swaying back and forth in the draft and collapsed from its loose hinges with a dull clang. The bronze clock on the second floor croaked quarter to four.

Slowly, Vidocq stood up from his seat at the desk, pushed in his chair, straightened the quill in the inkstand, collected a stray piece of blotting paper from the floor, replaced it in its box, then picked up his suddenly rather light coat from the back of the chair… and was out the door like a shot.

Javert was sitting on the top step of the porch with his back against a support column and his face tilted towards the sunlight. Even with his eyes closed, he looked despicably smug.

"Hand it over," said Vidocq glumly.

Still squinting blissfully into the caressing warmth, Javert lifted up two fingers grasped in a pinch around the gold chain and dropped the watch onto Vidocq's waiting palm.

"And the purse that you lifted from my coat pocket, too."

Javert's face lost its battle against a burgeoning grin, and the corners of his mouth slowly drifted almost all the way to his earlobes. A little leather purse with a steel clasp sailed over his shoulder. Vidocq caught it, glanced inside to check for the two golden napoleons and put it away.

"And I suppose you'll be wanting those papers of yours back as well," drawled Javert in a tone of supercilious concession.

Vidocq's blood ran cold. He couldn't have…

"Papers?" he inquired casually. "What papers?"

"Little crinkly ones," elaborated Javert with a theatrically overblown Provencal accent, drawing air noisily through his nostrils and stretching like a sated python. "Rrreal important-looking, with all them little stamps and signatures going 'cross and lengthwise."

"Those were in my vest," said Vidocq incredulously. "In the inner pocket of my vest. How did you… no, you know what, don't even answer that. Just give them back."

Javert stood up, hopped onto the bottom stair of the porch to be on eye level with Vidocq, who remained on the top one, and solemnly extracted several thin folded sheets from inside his jacket.

"I hope you're taking better precautions than that against real thieves," he said seriously and without the accent.

"So far, there haven't been any thieves bold enough to pat me down like that in broad daylight," said Vidocq through clenched teeth.

Javert shook his head and clicked his tongue.

"Touchy, touchy, touchy," he said, sat back down onto the top stair and fished an apple out of his trouser pocket. "Be grateful I left that pretty little arbalest on your neck. Could've taken that, too." Having rubbed the apple off on his trousers, Javert proceeded to consume it in two gigantic bites.

"I'm not a woman to wear an arbalest," said Vidocq sourly. "It's a relic, not a cross. And if you lay a finger on it, you're a dead man."

Javert tilted his head back and lifted a well-shaped black eyebrow.

"So now you are angry with me?" he asked through a full mouth. "Whatever for? First you want me to be a thief, then you don't want me to be a thief. You confuse me. Make up your mind already." He tossed the apple core into the bushes.

In lieu of a response, Vidocq pulled on his cap and inclined his head towards the street.

"Come on," he said. "It's all perfectly clear with you. We've got a four o'clock appointment with the Chief of the Second Division."

Javert gave what sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

"'L'Ange Malin' himself?" he said, standing up and dusting off the back of his trousers. "I tremble in advance."

Vidocq stopped in his tracks.

"How the hell… how long have you been in Paris?"

Javert screwed his eyes up to the glimmering heavens in thought.

"Since about six in the evening yesterday. I've been asleep for most of it, though."

"Where did you hear about that 'Bad Angel' business? I assume Monsieur Henry's fame hasn't yet spread into Russia, has it?"

"Here and there," evaded Javert. "I may be between jobs, but my ears aren't plugged up."

Vidocq shook his head. They started down the garden path.

"So why do people call him that, anyway?" asked Javert.

"If we don't pick up the pace, you're guaranteed to find out," said Vidocq, unlatching the rusty wrought iron gate. "He's not an easy man to talk to under any circumstances, but if you are late to an appointment, he can be a really ugly customer."

"But we're going to be on time," he said confidently, re-latching the gate from the outside. "And then after he's done with us, we'll look into putting you up. Where are you staying?"

"In a tavern near Place de la Concorde. I didn't feel like exploring when I arrived."

"Settle your accounts today," instructed Vidocq. "This evening I'll show you some digs that'll make your mouth water."


End file.
